The following description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention.
Understanding the structure-function relationships at cellular, circuit, and organ-wide scale requires 3D anatomical and phenotypical maps, currently unavailable for many organs across species. At the root of this knowledge gap is the absence of a method that enables whole-organ imaging. To that end, the technique of tissue clearing holds great potential. There is a need in the art for compositions and methods that can be used to render whole-organs and bodies macromolecule-permeable and optically-transparent, thereby exposing their cellular structure with intact connectivity.